Chapter 12: Chetan

I meet Chetan at a book reading.

Not at the gym — at a bookstore in Kala Ghoda, the kind of bookstore that smells of old paper and new ambition and the particular dust that accumulates on shelves where literature lives longer than the people who write it. The bookstore is called Kitaabghar, and it hosts readings every Saturday evening — readings that attract twenty to forty people depending on the author's fame and the weather's mercy, because Mumbai rain can cancel anything except cricket and weddings.

I'm here because Jaya told me to come. "There's an author reading tonight. Chetan Deshpande. He writes literary fiction — the kind that wins awards and sells twelve hundred copies. His new book is about a widower who moves to Goa. You'll either love it or fall asleep. Come."

I come because I've learned that when Jaya says "come," the correct response is: yes. Jaya's recommendations have a one hundred percent accuracy rate. She told me to cut my hair: accurate. She told me to read Doosri Innings: accurate (her blog is beautiful — the kind of writing that enters your chest and rearranges the furniture). She told me Aditi would be good for the group: accurate. Jaya sees: trajectories. She sees where people are going before the people themselves know.

The bookstore is crowded — forty-three people (I count, because counting is what I do when I'm nervous, and I'm nervous because this is my first non-gym social event in Mumbai that doesn't involve Vandana or wine or vada pav, and the absence of those anchors makes me feel: exposed). I find a seat in the third row. Jaya is supposed to be here but has texted: "Ananya fever. Can't come. Tell me everything."

I'm alone in a bookstore. This should be fine. I used to be alone in boardrooms, pitching taglines to clients who held my career in their expressions. I used to be alone in Lucknow, navigating a city I didn't choose while maintaining a marriage I couldn't leave. Being alone in a bookstore should be: easy.

It isn't. Because alone-in-a-bookstore is a specific kind of alone — the kind where everyone else seems to be with someone, in pairs or small groups, and you are: singular, and the singularity is: visible.

And then: Chetan Deshpande walks to the podium.

He is: tall. Not Harsh-tall (Harsh was tall in the corporate way — tall because his suits were well-cut and his posture was aggressive). Chetan is tall in the way that certain men are tall — the tallness is accompanied by a slight stoop, as if the height is: something he's apologising for, or as if he's spent years bending toward shorter people to hear them better. He has grey hair — fully grey, no dye, no pretence, the grey of a man who has decided that vanity is: a tax he's not willing to pay. His eyes are: what I notice. Dark, attentive, the kind of eyes that look at a room and see: individuals, not an audience.

He reads from his new novel. The novel is called Doosra Kinara — The Other Shore — and it's about a man named Mohan who, after his wife's death, moves to a fishing village near Panjim and learns to: exist without the person who defined his existence. Chetan reads a chapter — the chapter where Mohan learns to cook fish curry from a local woman named Francisca, the cooking being: not about the food but about the act of learning something new when everything old has: ended.

His voice is: the kind of voice you don't hear often. Low but not deep, warm but not soft, with the particular cadence of a man who writes sentences for a living and has therefore learned to: speak sentences with the rhythm that sentences deserve. He reads slowly. Not because the prose demands slowness but because he respects the prose — each word given its weight, each pause given its breath.

I forget I'm alone. I forget the counting. I forget the singularity. There is only: the voice, and the story, and the man telling it.

After the reading, there's chai. Because this is India, and no gathering is complete without chai — the chai that materialises at events the way rain materialises in Mumbai: inevitably, without announcement, filling whatever container is available. I'm standing at the chai table, holding a paper cup (better than the lawyer's-office chai, worse than street chai, acceptable for a bookstore), when he appears.

"Did you enjoy the reading?"

I look up. It's Chetan. Standing next to me with his own paper cup, his height requiring him to look down, the looking-down not producing condescension but: attention. The attention of a man who is used to being looked up at and who compensates by: looking down carefully.

"Very much. Mohan's cooking scene — the fish curry. That was —" I search for the word. Not "nice" (too weak). Not "beautiful" (too generic). Not "powerful" (too reviewing). "— honest. It felt like you'd lived it."

"I did. Not the fish curry specifically — I can't cook. But the learning something new when everything old has ended. That's — autobiography." He says this without self-pity. The way Cheryl talks about Doug. The way Jaya talks about her ex-husband. The matter-of-fact tone of people who have metabolised their loss into: material.

"Your wife?" I ask. The question is forward. I know this. I wouldn't have asked it three months ago — three months ago I was the woman who said "theek hai" and didn't ask questions that might produce: discomfort. But Mumbai-Mar asks questions. Mumbai-Mar has learned from Jaya that questions are: respect, because questions say: I'm interested in your truth, not just your surface.

"Meera. Cancer. Three years ago." Three sentences. Each one a complete unit of: fact. The name, the cause, the time. The biography of a loss compressed into: nine words.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you. It gets —" He pauses. The pause of a man who has been asked this many times and has many answers and is deciding which answer to give to this particular stranger at this particular chai table. "It gets different. Not easier. People say easier. It's not easier. It's: different. The weight doesn't decrease. You just get stronger. So it feels lighter even though it isn't."

"That's the most honest answer anyone has given me about grief."

"I write for a living. Honest answers are: the only product I have."

We talk. The talking that happens when two people who have survived something find each other at a chai table and discover that the surviving has given them: a common language. We talk about books (he's read everything; I've read less than I want to admit but more than most; we argue about Premchand — he says Godaan is the greatest Indian novel; I say Nirmala and the argument is: beautiful, the kind of argument that energises rather than depletes). We talk about Mumbai (he's lived here all his life; I'm still learning; he recommends a walk through Banganga that I haven't done and that he offers to guide). We talk about the gym (he doesn't go to one; he walks — Marine Drive in the mornings, the walk being: his meditation, his therapy, his version of Sunaina's 6 PM yoga).

We don't talk about my divorce. I don't offer it and he doesn't ask. Not because the information is hidden but because: it's not needed. Not yet. What's needed is: this. Two people. Chai. A conversation about Premchand. The discovery that another human being can be: interesting, in a way that doesn't require: explanation or context or the full biography of your damage.

At nine o'clock, the bookstore begins to close. The owner dims the lights — the universal signal that says: go home, the books will be here tomorrow, the conversations can wait.

"Can I walk you somewhere?" Chetan asks.

"I'm in Bandra. It's not far."

"I'm in Dadar. I'll walk you to the station."

We walk. Through the Kala Ghoda streets — the streets that at night produce a particular Mumbai beauty: old buildings lit by streetlamps, the art galleries closed but their window displays still visible, the occasional cat crossing our path with the entitlement that Mumbai cats possess (cats in Mumbai walk as if the city was built for them, and they may be: right). We walk without urgency. The walking of two people who don't want the conversation to end but who understand that endings are: part of the shape of things.

At the station, he says: "This was — unexpected. In a good way."

"For me too."

"Can I have your number? Not for — I'm not —" He's fumbling. The fumbling of a man who hasn't asked for a woman's number in: years, possibly decades, and for whom the asking is: terrifying and exciting in equal measure.

"Yes," I say. Because "yes" is what I'm practising. Yes to the haircut. Yes to the vada pav. Yes to the bookstore alone. Yes to the number.

He saves my number. I save his. "Chetan (Kitaabghar)" — because in my phone, people are: defined by where I met them. The taxonomy of a new life, organised not by history but by: encounter.

I take the train home. The local train at 9:30 PM — crowded but not crushing, the evening-crowd being different from the morning-crowd (the evening-crowd has been: softened by a day of work and is going home to food and sleep and the television that Mumbai runs on). I stand holding the overhead bar, my body swaying with the train's rhythm, and I think: today, I met someone. Not a gym acquaintance, not a former colleague, not a member of my circle. Someone new. Someone who reads Premchand and walks Marine Drive and speaks about grief with the honesty of a man who has earned the right to be: honest.

The train passes Bandra station. I get off. The platform smells of: the sea, and the evening, and the jasmine that someone is selling at the station exit.

I buy a string of jasmine. I loop it around my wrist. The scent follows me home — sweet, persistent, the scent that Meera probably wore, the scent that Indian women wear because jasmine is: not a flower but a declaration of presence. I am here. I smell like: this. I have survived this day and I'm carrying: flowers.